E-Learning Startup Quipper Launches in Cebu, Eyes Partnerships with Schools Transitioning to K-12

Wazzup Pilipinas!

With the full implementation of the K-12 program this June with onset of the additional 2-year senior high school program, an education technology company out to improve the teaching and learning experience is now offering its services in Cebu.

Yuki Naotori, Country Manager of Quipper, said the launching at Tisa Elementary School, which is plagued by many of the same challenges besetting high schools nationwide, exemplifies the company’s vision for a world where everyone has easy access to quality education.

“This year is a pivotal one for Philippine education, with an estimated 1.2 to 1.6 million students beginning grade 11 in June. By providing excellent, K-12 aligned content on a platform that helps teachers streamline their teaching methods and class management while simultaneously providing students with an engaging yet effective learning experience, we hope to make this transition easier for both public and private schools in Cebu and the rest of the country,” said Naotori.

To access the platform and content, teachers need to sign up at school.quipper.com, register their school, then invite their students to create accounts and join their class. Once students have signed-in, teachers can send assignments or exams and communicate with students via the platform’s messaging system. Educators are also able to upload their own content and access analytics on their students’ performance. The platform is gamified, so students get instant feedback upon answering, and earn ‘coins’ for correct answers, which they can use to ‘buy’ desktop wallpaper for their Quipper account. The use of Quipper School and all its features is free of charge.

Profil Holidays Launches New Travel Packages and Mobile App in Celebration of 25th Anniversary

Wazzup Pilipinas!

100% Filipino-owned Profil Holidays, one of the Philippines’ leading travel and tours company, is celebrating the 25th year in the business as among the leaders in the industry. With this, they have recently unveiled 6 exciting new travel packages including budget travels that will suite the more tight on the budget yet adventurous type of traveler.

Profil actually stands for Professional Filipino, meaning they probably thought of the names 25 years ago to indicate how dedicated and determined they are in providing Filipinos the opportunity to travel around the world and see different tourist spots and destinations in the most affordable yet memorable package.

Profil Holidays had helped thousands of Filipinos explore more than 100 countries in five continents, giving them a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable experiences. True enough, they are also launching a mobile app they call Travel Scout that will also help travelers for added convenience in targeting their desired destinations. Soon the mobile app will undergo additional improvements and add-ons to make it a lot more better to serve more in seeing the world. The app is now available for download at Google Play for Android smartphones and at the App Store for iPhones.

From the media conference held at the iconic Manila Hotel on March 8, 2016, it is surprising to find out that many still perceive Filipinos as "babies" with regards to their attitude in traveling. Rosanna "Anne" Inchiong, General Manager of Profil Holidays, and Benilo "Bomg" Tabang, Sales Director of Profil Holidays both agree that Americans and Europeans are more mature in dealing and communicating with people around the world. Filipinos tend to expect more pampering while the said foreign customers are thrilled to travel backpacker style. 

Supreme Court Orders COMELEC to Print Receipts

Wazzup PIlipinas!

"The COMELEC found itself in a state of emergency on Tuesday, March 8, after a Supreme Court ruling practically required the poll body to overhaul crucial processes that took months to finish." - Rappler

"This may go against the celebratory mood of most people but the SC decision on the printing of receipts as VVPAT mechanism for PCOS might create more problem than solution. Why?

1) As per COMELEC statistics, we have 54.3 M registered voters divided in 92,509 Clustered Precincts (CP), so in theory, you'll have 586 voters per CP. Printing of receipts will take 13 seconds while reading and confirming might take 20-30 seconds (note: this is a conservative estimate not yet considering our special needs sector) so that's 33-43 seconds per voter. Thus, voting time will have to be extended by 19338 seconds (5.37 HOURS)- 25198 (6.99 HOURS). Considering the 2013 elections that operated from 7am to 7pm, we're looking at closing precincts now at around 12AM-2AM.

2) The need to reconfigure 96,096 PCOS considering printing of receipts is not included in the present model. I'm not yet sure if they have to reconfigure the software or/and hardware of the machines.

3) Remember that we are not allowed to bring receipts outside the polling center because they need to be surrendered and put into ballot boxes? Yup, we have to buy those ballot boxes too. Let's assume that 1 CP needs 1 ballot box, so we will be needing 92,509 ballot boxes. 1 ballot box will incur 3,000 pesos ( AES watch versus COMELEC) so that's an additional cost of 277 M pesos for an election that's already spending 12 BILLION already. I'm not yet mentioning the 1.2 M additional rolls of thermal paper.